Hard West

Hard West, a turn-based tactics title from 2015, is not a demanding showcase for modern hardware, but the measured data for the Intel Core i5-12600KF and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER combination reveals a clear performance hierarchy across its presets. The benchmark results indicate that this pairing is overwhelmingly powerful for this game, delivering extremely high frame rates at all but the most extreme settings, making the choice of settings more about display refresh rate and visual fidelity than about achieving playability.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data shows a clear optimal path for this hardware configuration in Hard West. At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset delivers an average of 154 FPS, which is exceptionally smooth. However, the Medium preset achieves an average of 258 FPS, a significant jump of over 100 FPS, with a minimum of 220 FPS ensuring absolutely no dips below high-refresh-rate territory. For 2560x1440, the High preset is the sweet spot, providing an average of 130 FPS, which is ideal for a 120Hz or 144Hz display. The Ultra preset at this resolution drops to 97 FPS, which is still smooth but not as optimal for high refresh rates. At 3840x2160, the High preset is the only sensible choice for a premium experience, yielding an average of 68 FPS, which is just above the 60 FPS threshold for console-like smoothness. The Ultra preset at 4K drops to 51 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for a fast-paced strategy game where smooth camera panning is beneficial.

The data suggests that the "High" preset offers the best balance between visual quality and performance across all resolutions. At 1080p, High yields 205 FPS, at 1440p it yields 130 FPS, and at 4K it yields 68 FPS. This consistent performance profile makes High the recommended preset for users who want a stable and high-quality experience without the performance hit of Ultra. The Medium preset is a strong alternative for those with very high refresh rate monitors (240Hz+), especially at 1440p where it hits 169 FPS and 1080p where it hits 258 FPSikuha. In contrast, the Low preset offers diminishing returns; while it does produce the highest frame rates (e.g., 278 FPS at 1080p), the visual sacrifice is typically not worth the marginal increase over Medium or High. The Ultra preset, while visually superior, imposes a heavy performance penalty, reducing frame rates by roughly 25-50% compared to High, making it the least efficient choice for this hardware.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12600KF is a 10-core, 16-thread processor from the Alder Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 4.90 GHz. While Hard West is a turn-based tactics game that is not typically CPU-intensive, the benchmark results suggest the CPU is more than capable of keeping up with the GPU. The measured frame rates at lower resolutions, such as 278 FPS at 1080p Low, indicate that the CPU is not a bottleneck in this scenario. In fact, the CPU's strong single-thread performance, evidenced by a 3DMark single-thread score of 1016 and a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3302, ensures that game logic and AI calculations are handled with ease.

The processor's multi-threading capabilities, shown by a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 23391 and a Passmark multithread score of 27575, are overkill for this title. The game's genre relies more on discrete calculations rather than continuous parallel workloads, so the 16 threads are largely underutilized. The data shows that the CPU's performance is sufficient to feed the RTX 4080 SUPER even at high frame rates. The i5-12600KF's average benchmark score of 27799 places it in the 79th percentile of all CPUs, and it performs nearly identically to rivals like the Intel Core i9-10900K and AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D, with deltas of -0.3% in both cases. This means that for Hard West, the CPU's role is to provide a stable foundation, and it does so effectively, allowing the GPU to be the primary determinant of frame rate.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER is a high-end graphics card with 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 736.3 GB/s. Its core clocks are 2295 MHz base and 2550 MHz boost, with a substantial 52.22 TFLOPS of FP32 compute power. In Hard West, the GPU is the dominant factor in performance scaling. The data clearly shows that as resolution increases, frame rates drop, which is a classic sign of GPU-bound rendering. At 1080p High, the card produces 205 FPS, but at 4K High, it drops to 68 FPS. This scaling is consistent with the increased pixel count and the demand on the GPU's shading units and ROPs.

The card's 16 GB of VRAM is not a limiting factor in this game, given its age and graphical complexity. The RTX 4080 SUPER's performance percentile is 86, and its average benchmark score of 54209 is nearly identical to the standard RTX 4080, with a delta of -0.1%. This indicates that the "SUPER" variant offers marginal performance gains in synthetic tests, which translates to a negligible difference in Hard West. The GPU's memory clock of 1438 MHz (23 Gbps effective) and its high texture rate of 816.0 GTexel/s ensure that texture-heavy scenes are rendered without issue. The data shows that the GPU is the primary driver of the frame rate differences between presets, and its immense power is what allows for such high frame rates at 1080p and 1440p. At 4K, the card still manages to deliver playable frame rates, but it is clearly working harder, as evidenced by the drop from 108 FPS at Low to 51 FPS at Ultra.

How This Combo Ranks

The combined performance of the Intel Core i5-12600KF and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER in Hard West places it at rank 259 out of 3722 tested combinations. This puts the combo in the top 7% of all systems tested, which is an outstanding result. This high ranking is primarily due to the GPU's immense power, as the CPU's performance, while solid, is not exceptional. The combo's rank indicates that it can outperform the vast majority of other system configurations in this game. Given that the game is from 2015 and is not visually demanding, this combo is far more powerful than necessary for a flawless experience.

The fact that it ranks 259th out of 3722 suggests that there are still 258 other combinations that perform better, likely featuring even more powerful CPUs or GPUs, such as the RTX 4090 or newer generation processors. However, for the vast majority of users, this combo is in the top tier of performance. The data shows that the combo achieves over 200 FPS at 1080p on High settings, which is a level of performance that few other systems can match. The ranking also implies that the system is not bottlenecked; both components are well-matched for this workload. The CPU's near-identical performance to the Ryzen 7 5800X3D and i9-10900K, as per the nearestRivals data, confirms that a more powerful CPU would not yield significant gains in this game, as the GPU is already being fully utilized at higher resolutions.

FAQ

Q: What is the best settings preset for a 1440p 144Hz monitor?

A: The High preset at 2560x1440 is the optimal choice, delivering an average of 130 FPS. This is well above the 144Hz refresh rate threshold for a smooth experience. The Ultra preset drops to 97 FPS, which is still playable but not as fluid.

Q: Can this combo handle 4K gaming in Hard West?

A: Yes, it can. At 3840x2160, the High preset achieves an average of 68 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS standard for console-like smoothness. The Low preset achieves 108 FPS, but the visual quality is significantly reduced.

Q: Is the CPU a bottleneck for this GPU in Hard West?

A: No, the data indicates the CPU is not a bottleneck. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 278 FPS, demonstrating that the CPU can feed the GPU with enough data to saturate it. The CPU's single-thread performance is more than sufficient for this turn-based tactics game.

Q: How does the RTX 4080 SUPER compare to the standard RTX 4080 in terms of benchmark scores?

A: The RTX 4080 SUPER has an average benchmark score of 54209, while the RTX 4080 has a score of 54247. This represents a delta of -0.1%, indicating that the SUPER variant is essentially identical in performance to the non-SUPER version.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Medium and Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, the Medium preset achieves an average of 258 FPS, while the Ultra preset achieves an average of 154 FPS. This is a difference of 104 FPS, showing that the Ultra preset imposes a significant performance penalty for increased visual fidelity.

Q: Is the 16 GB of VRAM on the RTX 4080 SUPER sufficient for Hard West?

A: The data shows that the GPU's VRAM is not a limiting factor in this game. The game is from 2015 and does not require a large amount of video memory, so the 16 GB capacity is more than adequate for any settings preset at any resolution tested.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data for the Intel Core i5-12600KF and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER in Hard West shows a clear scaling pattern across resolutions and settings.

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its highest frame rates. The Low preset yields an average of 278 FPS. The Medium preset produces an average of 258 FPS, with a minimum of 220 FPS and a maximum of 297 FPS. The High preset drops to an average of 205 FPS. The Ultra preset is the most demanding, yielding an average of 154 FPS.

At 2560x1440, frame rates remain very high. The Low preset achieves an average of 206 FPS. The Medium preset produces an average of 169 FPS, with a minimum of 144 FPS and a maximum of 194 FPS. The High preset yields an average of 130 FPS. The Ultra preset drops to an average of 97 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the GPU is pushed harder, but performance is still playable. The Low preset achieves an average of 108 FPS. The Medium preset yields an average of 89 FPS, with a minimum of 75 FPS and a maximum of 102 FPS. The High preset produces an average of 68 FPS. The Ultra preset is the most demanding, yielding an average of 51 FPS.

The data indicates that the transition from Low to Ultra settings at any given resolution has a significant impact on performance. For example, at 1440p, the difference between Low (206 FPS) and Ultra (97 FPS) is 109 FPS. The Medium preset consistently offers a good balance, with minimum frame rates that are still very high, ensuring a smooth experience even in busy scenes. The High preset is the recommended setting for a quality experience at all resolutions, as it provides a stable and high frame rate without the performance hit of Ultra.